The admission of Gentiles
But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he might create in himself of the twain one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: and he came and preached peace to you that were far off, and peace to them that were nigh: for through him we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father.
Now we can turn from the negative to the positive statement, and observe what St. Paul says of the new privileges of the once heathen converts. He pictures them under four metaphors, each describing a social state.
(1) They are citizens in the holy state, the commonwealth of the people consecrated to God—citizens with full rights, and no longer strangers or unenfranchised residents (sojourners).
(2) More intimately still, they belong to the family or household of God.
(3) They are being built all together into a sanctuary for God to dwell in—a holy structure of which the foundation stones are the apostles, and the Christian prophets who were their companions; and of which the corner-stone, determining the lines of the building and compacting it into one, is Jesus Christ, according to the word of God by Isaiah, 'Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone of sure foundation.'
(4) But the metaphor of the building passes into the metaphor of the growing plant. Christ is, as St. Peter says, 'a living stone[[3]].' He not only determines the lines of the spiritual structure, but He pervades the whole of it as a presence and spirit, so that every other human 'stone' is also alive and growing with His life.
So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
These are indeed metaphors expressive of glorious realities, which have no doubt become dulled in meaning through a conventional Christianity, which involves no sacrifice and therefore attains no sense of blessedness, but which a little meditation may easily restore to something of their original freshness.